SanDisk introduced the 12- and 16-gigabyte SanDisk Extreme III CompactFlash cards to its award-winning Extreme III performance line, making these the highest capacity cards in the world.

The new high-performance, large-capacity cards are ideal for professional photographers who shoot RAW or high-resolution JPG files and need the performance, reliability and capacity to capture these large files.

The new SanDisk Extreme III CompactFlash cards can also be used with the Grass Valley(TM) Infinity Series Digital Media Camcorder, the first camcorder introduced in the broadcast industry that uses non-proprietary, removable, solid-state flash memory cards as recording and playback media.

The new cards will have minimum write and read speeds of 20 megabytes per second (MB/sec.)(2) and will ship to photo retailers by the end of the year. The announcement was made at the Photokina trade show where SanDisk is demonstrating products in Hall 6, Stand D78/E79.

"The beauty of using large capacity cards like the 12- and 16GB SanDisk Extreme III cards is the freedom to shoot without worrying about filling up the card, " said Jonathan Torgovnik, contract photographer for Newsweek magazine and international freelance photographer. "I shoot in RAW mode almost exclusively and the large files can fill up a card very quickly. Having a large capacity card lets me focus on what I love to do--take pictures."

Tanya Chuang, SanDisk's senior retail product marketing manager, said, "The SanDisk Extreme III line combines exceptional performance and reliability with large capacities to provide an ideal storage solution for professional photographers that meets their shooting and workflow requirements. We believe that SanDisk will continue to be the preferred choice by professional photographers based on our capacity and performance advantages as well as our commitment to the digital photography market as a whole."

SanDisk Extreme USB 2.0 Readers Improve Workflow

While the speed of the card is important for in-camera performance, card-to-computer transfer rates are becoming an increasingly important workflow consideration. The time it takes to transfer images to a computer can be a bigger bottleneck now that card capacities have expanded into the multi-gigabyte range. The SanDisk Extreme USB 2.0 reader is designed to transfer images as quickly as possible.

SanDisk Extreme III cards use SanDisk-developed ESP (Enhanced Super-Parallel Processing) technology that combines advanced NAND flash memory chips and controller designs, 32-bit RISC processing and leading edge algorithms for an architecture that streamlines every aspect of read and write data transfer operations. In addition, SanDisk works closely with major camera manufacturers to ensure speed and compatibility. The ESP architecture effectively removes the card as the bottleneck in data storage applications.

SanDisk Extreme III cards have the industry's widest guaranteed operating temperature range from a minus 13F (minus 25C) to a 185F (plus 85C). The cards also include RescuePRO(R) software that allows photographers to easily recover accidentally deleted images, lost digital images or data.

Pricing and Availability

SanDisk Extreme III cards are available in CompactFlash, Memory Stick PRO Duo(TM) and SD(TM) card formats. Suggested retail prices for the two new capacities are: